Richard Roeper Blog

Incendiary film awful on many levels

The unfolding intrigue surrounding the anti-Islam movie making headlines around the world sounds like the blueprint for an infinitely better film than the actual movie in question.

If you can even call it a movie, based on the 14-minute trailer on YouTube.

You know about “Innocence of Muslims” by now. You’ve read about it and you’ve seen the visuals of riots breaking out in protest of a movie that depicts Muhammad as a homosexual that endorses pedophilia and extra-marital affairs.

“The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious belief of others,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said after four American diplomats were killed in Benghazi. (It’s unclear whether the attacks were spurred by the film or had been in the works for weeks.)

“But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind,” said Clinton.

Absolutely. No matter what your faith, and no matter how incendiary the movie/TV show/music/art, the perpetrators of violence are 100 percent responsible for their actions. And no matter how vast the cultural gap, if you’re rioting or killing innocent victims because some idiot made a movie that offends your religion, you’re a fool and a criminal.

But what of this so-called movie, “Innocence of Muslims”?

Even as authorities and journalists attempt to peel back the layers of confusion surrounding the film, with each answer we get I have at least one question.

It costs HOW much?

Some of the actors that appeared in the movie have come forward to say they were duped about the true nature of the film to the point where some of their lines were dubbed in later. Indeed, in the trailer there are voice-overs and lines that almost certainly were dubbed.

Cindy Lee Garcia, who stars in the film, told the CBS affiliate in Los Angeles she’s horrified by the movie and didn’t think it would even be about religion.

“There wasn’t anything about Muhammad or Muslims or anything,” said Garcia.

OK, but what movie did they THINK they were making? I can’t imagine anyone spending a day on one of those sets and not realizing they were going to be a part of something truly awful and possibly offensive.

The Wall Street Journal conducted a telephone interview with one Sam Bacile, 52, who said he raised $5 million to make and promote the film, which took three months to make, using a crew of 45 and a cast of 60.

Based on the 14-minute trailer playing on YouTube, I’d say that’s about $4.9 million and about 89 days more than I would have expected. To say the film is amateurish is an insult to amateurs around the globe.

Bacile said he posted the trailer for the film on YouTube in July, but it escaped attention until just recently.

Again: I haven’t seen the movie. Does a full-length version of this thing even exist? As far as I can tell, there’s been exactly one screening for 10 people in California.

But based on that 14-minute excerpt, there’s no way any theater would ever run that movie — not just because of the despicable content, but because it’s so incredibly awful. If a satirical website or TV show used production values like this to parody bad filmmaking, you’d say they’d gone too far and it looked TOO crummy.

So where was this movie going to play? Why in the world would investors put up $5,000, let alone $5 million? We’re to believe dozens of people gave this guy substantial chunks of money to make an anti-Islam movie with unknown actors that would never reach any kind of an audience?

“Sam Bacile” is either 56 or 52. He’s either a real guy or he’s not. A man named Steve Klein, who describes himself as a consultant for the film told the Atlantic there’s no Sam Bacile. (There was a consultant on that movie? What does he specialize in — Anachronistic Moronic Studies?)

On Thursday authorities were sent to the Cerritos, Calif., home of one Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, identified in multiple media reports as the producer of the film, because Nakoula was frightened for his life. Nakoula told the AP he’s the manager of the company that made “Innocence of Muslims,” but he claimed Bacile was the director. However, the AP says “Bacile’s” cell phone number was traced to Nakoula’s address.

Forget about “Wag the Dog.” This is “Dog the Hacks” until they tell the truth.

Someone could easily make a movie about all of this.

A real movie.

This entry was posted
on Monday, September 17th, 2012 at 11:25 am and is filed under Uncategorized.
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